Saturday, 30 April 2011

Just to let you all know that our unringed female osprey laid her 3rd egg of the season on Thursday (28th).

If was a year ago this weekend that the nest site suffered from an invasion by another osprey (who is actually this years male) which resulted in the egg being kicked out of the nest. Fingers crossed this doesn't happen again.

Both male and female are taking on parental responsibility well, with the male bringing in both fish and taking his turn at incubating the eggs!

Don't forget you can watch all the action from the comfort of your home, thanks to our online webcam!

Monday, 25 April 2011

Hi Folks,Hot off the press (or the TV screen!) our female osprey has just laid her 2nd egg of the season. It was laid at around 15.30 this afternoon (Monday 25th April). This is around 60 hours after the first which is normal for ospreys.

Unusually our male bird has taken quite a fancy to incubating the eggs!! This is considered the females role.

Saturday, 23 April 2011

I can now confirm that our unringed female has laid her first egg! It was spotted at 10.17am this morning (Saturday 23rd April). We believe it was laid at some point over night. Both male and female have been spotted incubating the egg this morning. We will keep you up to date over the next few days to let you know how things are going!

P.S. Also just to let you know our Barn Owl has successfully hatched all her five chicks!

Just to let you all know that you can now watch the happenings of the Aberfoyle ospreys from the comfort of your home. Our online web cam is know up and running meaning up can keep up to date with the ospreys throughout the season. The camera will take a picture of the nest every 2 minutes between the hours of 10am and 5pm. These will automatically upload to the web page.

Monday, 18 April 2011

As many of you are already aware there has been a highly contested battle for the Aberfoyle osprey nest this season. It is only just over 2 weeks since the ospreys returned and we have already had 5 different ospreys on the nest (3 females and 2 males). We currently have a metal ringed male, who was the "trouble maker" last year, who kicked out the eggs at the beginning of May 2010 and a new female who is unusually totally unringed! This new female has been around since Saturday and things are looking promising. There has been lots of nesting material brought in as well as repeated mating taking place. It is a year ago tomorrow (Tuesday) that we had our first egg last year, so we shouldn't have long to wait, fingers crossed!

Monday, 11 April 2011

As reported last week, since the return of our "trouble maker" bird from last season, neither yellow OU nor green DX have been spotted on the nest. Instead, the metal-ringed male osprey was seen on his own waiting for the return of last year's female, Red 6A. She still hasn't returned but the male's attention now seems to have been diverted to a new younger model in the shape of a 4 year old female, ringed white HA, who arrived on the nest on Friday. All we know about this new female is that she was hatched in the Tweed Valley, Scottish Borders in 2007. It is not especially unusual for female ospreys to venture slightly further afield from their birthplace in the hunt for a suitable nesting location. Hopefully white HA and metal ring are going to be our resident couple for the season as we have already had 4 different ospreys on the nest in the last 10 days! As many of you know there is also live viewing of Ospreys in the Tweed Valley. You can check out their blog at: http://tweedvalleyospreys.blogspot.com/ P.S One of our barn owl eggs has hatched, only four to go!

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

Today has seen the return of the "trouble maker" male osprey from last year, a metal ringed male. There have been a few unconfirmed sightings of a unringed male flying around the nest over the last few days but today we managed to get a good view of his legs! We aren't quite sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing as this particular male didn't show up until the 1st of May last year and this is what caused all the trouble, as we already had eggs by this point. We are hoping that seen as he has turned up earlier this year the two males can fight it out for the nest and female. He has been showing some unusual behaviour though, acting like he is already trying to kick eggs out the of nest; hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come! Yellow OU hasn't been spotted on the nest for the last two days. She is most likely just having a well deserved rest after her long migration and feeding up ready for the summer!

Just a quick update on Yellow OU, our female osprey that landed on the nest on Thursday. She was actually ringed in the Scottish Borders in 1999 by our very own Conservation Manager, Dave Anderson before being caught in Spain where a plastic colour ring was added in 2002. This event is described in Roy Dennis' book "A life of Ospreys". We are hoping to get the web cam online sometime this week, although this wont be live footage but a still image loaded onto the web page about every 10 seconds.

Monday, 4 April 2011

Hi Folks, thought that I would give you all a quick update on how the ospreys are getting on after they returned to their nest on Thursday (31/3). Both Yellow OU and Green DX look like they are starting to settle back in. Our male bird obviously thinks he is going to be the next Carol Smiley as he has been spotted doing a lot of nest interior design over the weekend! He is also proving his worth with his fishing skills as we have had a good amount of trout brought into the nest.

Just some more information on the female that has been spotted on the nest: Yellow OU last bred on the nest in 2005 before being kicked off by Red 6A (our female from the last few years). We believe she was ringed in the Borders in 2003 and also, unusually, winters in Spain. This is where she has been trapped and has been seen every year. I will confirm this soon.

All this sounds lovely and peaceful but over the last few days the unringed male bird from last year has been spotted both on the nest trying to charm our female, and also perching on a tree next to nest!

More blog posts

In a change the way to we blog with year we are going to try and blog at least every couple of days to keep you all updated!